


like light refracted

by from



Category: Golf RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artist Harry, Closeted, Coming Out, Golfer Niall, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 06:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9309158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/from/pseuds/from
Summary: PGA star Niall dreams of having someone along for the ride. Enter Harry, an artist who shows him the ways a dream can come true.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a million thanks to [openhearts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/openhearts/pseuds/openhearts) and [brokendrums](http://archiveofourown.org/users/brokendrums/pseuds/brokendrums) for looking it over. 
> 
> thank you to [mozartspiano](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mozartspiano/pseuds/mozartspiano) and [dramaturgicallycorrect](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect) for running this wonderful fest.
> 
> this fic contains homophobic slurs and incidents previously documented in pro sports.

Niall closes the door behind him. 

One more tournament over, another PGA Tour win in the bag, and a champion’s dinner to get to. He’s hungry for more wins. Always. But the season is only halfway over and he wishes he was already on his day off. It’s a zoo some days, the cameras and the crowds right up with them, and the feeling of being closed in is worse when he’s partnered with someone he can’t stand. 

He’ll need to step back into it again in a minute, but he dials his voicemail first and puts it on speaker, listens to his dad’s voice telling him he did well. Bobby tells him that every week, even when he doesn’t make the top ten. It’s the ritual of it now, one of the few things he gets to have from Mullingar even though it’s mostly out of his life. 

He’s stripping off his watch, smiling at Bobby’s story about the pink chocolate bunnies stocked too early at the supermarket for Easter, when he hears a screech. 

It’s a little girl, and she’s already laughing by the time he gets to the window. 

Patrick is staying in the house next to his own rental, a PGA official mentioned when they got paired up for the weekend, Niall already two shots ahead of him. She must be Patrick’s daughter. 

Niall didn’t get a good look when she rushed up with her mother on the eighteenth green to console her dad, but there’s Patrick now, yet another arsehole who thinks not hitting a good shot is _being a faggot_. Wish he knew one beat him today. 

The little girl smiles brightly when Patrick puts down the suitcases to pick her up and Niall looks away, heads straight for his hot shower, reminding himself he’s got a table waiting for him full of sponsors and organizers to please.

It used to be easier, when his mum travelled with him and could buttress him on one side. He’s still spread-eagled in bed late the next morning, staring at the fan whirring gently above, his jaw sore from the heavy-duty laughing, when his agent rings. 

Ellie’s is a familiar voice, at least. If he could only bring her to events, avoid all the manoeuvring that comes with being everyone’s potential son-in-law. They run down the new numbers and stipulations from Nike before she asks, “How about the message to go with the jar for the BFG project?”

“Niall? You there?”

“Oh. That dream jar thing. What am I meant to write again?” he hedges. He knows the brief. There’s a new Roald Dahl movie coming out and they’re putting up jars of celebrities’ dreams for kids to find around London. Rosey is also signed up to a jar. His has something to do with winning the Open. He was joking with Kate about it when Niall was over at their rental. 

“Walt told me the concept is that it’s one of your dreams and the BFG put it in a jar. They just need a couple of lines from you to get the artist started on the design. They’ll use the quote to introduce the jar when it’s on display and we’ll have a signed copy for whoever wins the jar at auction,” she’s saying. Niall closes his eyes, concentrates on the breeze touching the tip of his nose and the sheets breathing in the cool air. He wants to win the Open too. He wants a lot of things. “I can get someone in the London office to do it for you.”

“No. I’m almost done with it,” he lies, kicking off the sheets. “I’ll send it over tonight.”

On the plane, waiting for the runway to clear, Niall grabs a pencil and finds a clean envelope from Tuesday's registration still tucked into his backpack. But it’s not until he’s on his way, watching the airstrip get smaller and smaller and the world bigger and bigger, that the words come. 

_As a little boy, I liked the idea of floating above the trees and looking down on the world from above. Now I ~~want~~ like the idea of having someone with me for the ride._

+

“Remember, this is only intermediate work in miniature. So it’s a little bit rough.”

Niall swallows. He can’t stop staring at the two figurines cradled in his hand. A bloke and a girl, dressed the same, in colours matching the little Niall already waiting in the basket of the hot air balloon.

When he saw the drawings the month before, days after he sent in his dream, he’d just crashed out of the Masters, nowhere near close to defending his title. He told them he liked the hot air balloon idea and went for his next run of the day. As far as he was concerned, that had been the project taken care of.

“The balloon won’t be propped up like that. It’ll be floating. Liam’s in charge of the mechanics of it and we’ll get it right for the jar,” Simon keeps on explaining.

“I’m sure it will be,” Niall says finally, the tension in the room making his ears hot. “It’s not that.”

He looks up and sees Harry, the artist, looking at him, the easy smile still on his face. 

When Niall first saw him not five minutes ago, with the smile and the tight black jeans, the black-rimmed specs sitting lopsided at the top of his head, he heard the low thrum of everything else falling off the edges of his mind. It felt like he’d walked into someone else’s life and out of his own, where that sort of thing only ever happens on the course. 

“I think the girl with the long hair instead of the one with short hair,” he hears Walt say. “What do you think, Niall?”

Harry’s smile falters. “No, one of them is a guy. I mean, he's meant to be.” 

Niall’s knees feel like they’re going to go for a second. He steadies his breathing and hopes that the whole thing hasn’t been a joke, that the confusion in Harry’s voice is real. 

“I mean, I guess they could both be girls, but with very small pieces, the details become shorthand for—” 

Walt is giving Niall the _look_ , the one he usually reserves for pressers Niall is in the process of cocking up. He closes his hand on the miniatures so he can put them back on the table safely. 

“But then they could both be guys too. If—If that’s how you want to see it.” Harry says to Walt’s raised eyebrows. It's not defiance exactly and Harry is already faltering, but it's enough to stop Niall from letting go. “The point is,” Harry continues, pawing his head for his glasses and putting them on, “um, the point is, we try to be thorough and we give our clients what we think they would appreciate and um, what I understood to be—”

“Harry, shut up,” someone coughs from behind him.

“The quote. The one going up with the jar,” Harry punches through. “Mr Horan. You said ‘someone’. You said you like the idea of having _someone_ with you. I didn’t want to assume—”

“The BFG is a kids’ movie,” Walt cuts in.

Niall should be talking to Walt, but somehow, it’s Harry whose eyes he’s meeting. “Yeah. It’s a kids’ movie and representation matters, doesn't it?” he says. “Kids are gonna see this and they don't all dream the same dreams, do they? You know what, I kind of wish I could have two jars so no one gets left out.” 

All the while he’s saying it, looking at the steely green eyes behind the glasses, there’s a video looping in his head. Winning a tournament and getting a victory hug from the boyfriend he loves, right there at the eighteenth. A husband and a kid, maybe two kids, rushing up to him at Augusta when he reclaims the title someday. If he chose the little bloke to go up and away with the little Niall, maybe that would be the life he’d get to live on the Tour.

But the sports psychologist he sees is right. There’s a difference between the shots he knows he can hit and shots he thinks he should hit. “The reality is,” he chuckles, “these two would be flying off in the balloon without me. I barely have time for a proper meal these days, let alone a hot air balloon ride.”

The room is perfectly silent and, fleetingly, he wonders if they can hear their own hearts the way he’s hearing his, already going back to steady.

“Remember, this is just a mock-up,” Simon says, leaning over the table to fix the trees that don’t need fixing. “As long as you’re happy with the overall concept and look, the smaller details can be sorted later.” He looks over his shoulder at one of the guys in the back. “Liam, do you want to explain what’s happening with the balloon?”

Harry seems to take the dismissal for what it is and leaves, gently shutting the door behind him. Niall musters a smile for Liam and listens to him explain how they’ll make the hot air balloon look like it’s floating by attaching it to the lid of the jar, lets him have one of the miniature partners so he can demonstrate the weight distribution in the passenger basket underneath the balloon.

“I told Simon there’s got to be a way to make a balloon that can float round and round in the jar, but we modelled it and the motion sort of gives you a headache after a while.”

Niall laughs and asks him if he could see what that 3D model looks like. 

When the meeting breaks up, Niall shakes everyone’s hand and glances to see if Walt is leaving with him. 

“Thanks, Si,” Walt is saying, looming over the studio head and his neat presentation folders. “Niall won’t be back again until after the Open in July, but I’ll keep him in the loop.”

“The jars are going up first week of July,” Simon says.

“We’ll relay everything to him. Access won’t be a problem.”

“You know, Walter, these things are only ever as good as the collaboration behind them.”

Niall walks away. There’s no point in watching someone hit their head repeatedly against a brick wall. 

Walt has been good for him, Niall reminds himself. He was a raw talent who did well on a golf scholarship in the States and he could’ve kept going as he was, maybe played in the amateur circuit for a while before getting onto the European Tour and peaking there. It was Walt who took his prospects to another level, ushered him from stage to stage, from getting noticed as a student to getting sponsorships as a pro, from winning a few tournaments to having won two major PGA events by the time he was twenty-one. Without Walt, Niall wouldn’t be where he is today.

No distractions, he promised Walt three years ago. He only has to think of the results to know the sacrifices are worth it, even if outsiders will never understand. 

The massive studio floor, where he had first spotted Harry’s mess of a hairdo before they were introduced, is empty. Niall ducks into the loos, blinks away the frown on the face he sees in the mirror, and leaves. 

Feeling his pockets in the open stairwell he’d taken earlier from below, he finds the little male figurine with his car key fob. He considers going up to the meeting room again to return it, but he’s a realist. They’ll go with the girl. Keep it straight. 

He sighs and picks up the pace. Even if he could be out on the pull somewhere right this very minute, he’d be hopeless. They’d drink up and leave as soon as he got nervous and started trying to crack jokes.

“How was I meant to know?” A deep voice from the level Niall just passed makes him slow to a stop, retrace his steps. “Wasn't at the concept meeting, was I?” He can feel his heart rate rising. It’s Harry. “And when I got back from France, Zayn had quit, hadn't he? The renders weren't complete. You saw them. All I had were the notes on the server and he's shit at making notes.” 

“Didn't you google it? You could've put his name and like, _girlfriend_. Wasn't he dating some hot Victoria's Secret—”

“I know how to google, Liam. But he said _someone_. I wasn’t going to presume, was I?” 

“He's a professional athlete in an old man’s sport, you wanker. Who did you think they'd want in the fucking balloon with him?”

Niall pokes his head round the steelwork. Just to see whose is the third voice. 

It belongs to the guy who told Harry to shut up in the meeting. He was introduced to Niall as the head of the crew assigned to his dream jar. Louis, Niall recalls before he’s completely distracted by the sight of Harry in a leather jacket, the edge skimming the top of his arse. 

“Were you trying to suss him out in there?”

“No,” Harry says, sounding completely offended, but from the look on Liam’s face probably not for the first time today.

“He _is_ gay, though, isn't he?” 

Niall’s stomach drops. He’s gotten too used to talk in clubhouse locker rooms, where people will use the word as a slur but always pretend there’s no gay player on the Tour.

Harry shrugs. “What does it matter?”

“He is. He’s not straight, anyway. He looked fucking terrified,” Louis says, and the only thing that’s keeping Niall from stepping back and hot footing it straight down to the underground carpark is the concern in Louis’ voice. 

“Come on, Lou,” Harry sighs. “I already know I fucked up. There’s no need to rub it in.”

It’s not Niall’s place to comfort him and maybe an unwise decision overall, but he steps out of the stairwell anyway, kicking the decorative tin siding so they’ll hear him. 

When they turn to look, startled, wary, he waves the figurine in the air. “Just wanted to give this back,” he explains. 

“Oh hey, Niall.”

He nods at Louis and continues toward Harry. “I accidentally took it to the loos with me, but it was in my pocket the whole time.” Seeing Harry stare harder at him, mouth agape, Niall adds, “It’s clean, is what I mean. You don’t have to waste it. It’s too nice to waste.”

“You can have that one,” Harry says after more silent staring. “The hair’s a bit messy but um, it's meant to be windswept.” 

“Yeah, go on. Keep it,” Louis tells him. “A good luck charm for the next time you’re out there.”

Liam nods as if they’re all agreed on it.

Niall chuckles. “Thank you,” he says. “Perfect size for a good luck charm,” he adds. His fingers are weirdly numb, like he’s been playing the Open for half a day in rain and wind coming straight off the North Sea. He folds his palm around the figurine as tight as he can. It’s not far to the car from here. “Well.” He takes one last glance at Harry. “Goodnight, gents.”

He goes back down the stairwell and circles round the carpark twice before he finds his SLK even though the floor is almost empty. 

At least it’s easy to shove the figurine down his pocket after getting out his key fob. The harder part is trying to get the fob to work. 

“Mr Horan.” Niall looks round and sees Harry standing by the pillar one spot over, a helmet tucked under his left arm. “I’m sorry about earlier.” 

“What you mean?” Niall says, trying to keep his voice steady while going back to stabbing the air with the fob where Harry can’t see. 

“In the meeting.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Niall throws over his shoulder. “You guys did a great job. And it’s Niall. You’re already Harry in my head so I should be Niall in yours.”

All he hears is the hum of the building and the faraway music of cars rushing down late-night streets until Harry coughs, a giant echo following. “I probably shouldn’t be bringing this up,” he says slowly, “but my dad is a big fan of yours. Niall.”

Surprised, Niall stops trying to work the lock and turns to face him. “Oh really?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, smiling now. “He like, spent the weekend watching the Masters last year and then watched the highlights after just to like, see you hole out for that eagle again.”

Niall has trained himself to always look at guys’ eyes when they’re speaking, but hearing golf talk coming out of Harry’s mouth, he can’t help but look down for a second. Maybe two. 

“Sounds like you know a bit of golf yourself,” Niall tries, and hopes.

“I used to play with him sometimes, ages ago, before I moved down here for uni.”

A giggle burbles in him and a tiny bit of it falls out of his mouth. “Sorry,” he quickly says. He wants to explain it’s not Harry he’s giggling about, but he can’t come up with the real reason. “Probably the wrong thing to say, but you don’t exactly look the type.”

Harry shakes his head, his smile turning crooked. Niall reminds himself of all the times he’s been here before, thinking a guy was hot and wanting to get to know him, and not finding the room in his life to do anything about it. “That’s what’s wrong with golf these days,” Harry says, and Niall is sure they’re teasing each other now.

He shouldn’t let it go on, but he doesn’t want their little moment to end, not yet. “Missing the days back when golf was cool enough for hipsters, are ya?” he says, fiddling with the fob and hearing the car beep. Treacherous piece of shit. 

“It’s golf that doesn’t want us, Niall, not the other way round.”

Niall snorts. “Let me tell you, golf will take anyone these days,” he says. He’s not meant to go around saying this type of thing outside of the Tour, but it’s the truth. “With Woods gone, there’s barely anyone watching.”

“It’s just not that exciting to watch, is it?” Harry says. “Unless you yourself play.”

Cheeky bastard. “Yeah? I dunno, mate. I’m probably not the best person to give you an answer on that one.”

“Okay,” Harry steps back and waves his helmet in the direction of somewhere and everywhere. “I’m gonna let you go. Now that I’m done making a mess of the meeting and talking shit about your job.”

Niall shakes his head, grinning. “You’re all right, Styles.” 

The lighting in the car park is horrible, but it almost looks like Harry is blushing as he turns away. 

Niall should let him go. People aren’t for getting lost in.

“Wait a minute,” he calls out. “Can I sign something for your dad?”

“Uh, yeah? That’d be amazing.”

He opens the car door and grabs a ball from the pack sitting on the floor next to his spare range shoes. He signs the ball with extra care and grabs another, puts his number on it. 

“Don’t give your dad the wrong one,” he says, dropping both into Harry’s open hand.

“Oh,” Harry looks down. “Um.” He tips his head. His eyes are smiling, but he’s biting his lip and Niall doesn’t know if he can bear it. “Um,” Harry repeats. 

Niall’s mind jumps three steps ahead and decides he can handle it. Walt said he’s going to take care of the jar. He’ll be the go-between and Niall won’t have to suffer the embarrassment for the next couple of months. 

“Thanks, but you’re like, a client, and it would be—”

“It’s for if you wanna cut through the red tape and FaceTime me or text me about the jar. You know, however you people do these things. Keep me up to date on the project.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course,” Harry nods and nods until Niall is done. “But just so we’re clear,” he smiles and says quietly, “I think you’re all right too.”

+

The first text from Harry doesn’t come until the middle of the Players Championship, when it looks like Niall might not even make the weekend’s cut.

It’s a string of Irish flag emojis from a UK number that makes Niall think his cousin has had to change numbers again. Except, a minute later, comes

_Harry here_

And

_Harry Styles from 3D S©I_

Niall gives Sean a thumbs up to let him know he’s done the second check on his golf bag and follows his caddy out of the practice area.

 _Irish Open is next week_ , he texts back, smiling. 

_Silk buying is this week!_

Niall can think of a few things silk is good for but it’s probably something to do with the dream jar. There’s no time to ask, though, because it’s _phones off, Mr Horan_ past the cordon around the clubhouse. 

When he’s back at his rental, having held on to a weekend spot by the skin of his teeth, he finds a photo of Louis and a woman with long blond hair going over arm lengths of fabric in shades of green, white, and orange.

 _Making me a flag, Styles?_ he thinks to send and doesn’t. 

It’s late in London and it’s no good being too eager. That’s how he misses easy putts, airmails greens, and finds generally the worst guys to hook up with.

But the next morning, after getting his smoothie out of the NutriBullet, he sends the text anyway. 

What he gets is a FaceTime call. 

“Hiya,” Harry waves, eyes bright. “I’m in the studio. We all are.” The camera jiggles, the room coming into view, and Niall sees half a dozen people their age working on benches and tables. 

What he wants to see is Harry’s face again. “Working on a Saturday? What’s the matter with you lot?”

“Student loans, mostly,” Harry says, back on screen. “Simon doesn’t pay overtime but he keeps the kitchen stocked.”

“Right.” They should be getting overtime, but it’s probably not Niall’s place to say. “Hope you’re not working on mine without pay.”

“Um …” Harry ducks his head and all Niall can see is his hair with the glasses resting in it, a bushy myopic muppet. It’s cuddly as far as heads-turned-muppets go.

“Oi. The clock’s ticking here. Are you going to show it to him or should I?” someone says, their hand coming over the phone. 

“I was getting to it, Lou,” Harry says. Niall catches the corner of his quiet smile as the camera moves off in Louis’ hands without him and goes to a table where the balloon is resting. 

Niall marvels at the precise slices of vibrant green, white, and orange. It looks like something out of a fairy tale, what with the large fancy banding around it trimmed with gold and the beaded copper netting with little white bows. 

“That’s a thing of beauty, that,” Niall says, and wishes he were at the studio so he could shout the words, let them know how much he means it. 

“Are you stopping in London next week?” Harry asks when Louis is done explaining the work.

“No. It’s straight to Ireland from here and back again,” Niall replies, trying to be matter-of-fact about it. 

“All right. Well.” Harry scratches his nose. “Have fun and good luck,” he says.

“I will, thanks,” Niall says, wanting to tell him it’s not looking all that good but he’s got the charm still, tucked into the small side pocket of his tournament golf bag, wanting to ask if Harry might want to pop over to Ireland next weekend. Ask his dad to come along, if he might like to. “Yeah. So, uh, contact me if there’s anything you want me to look at or help you with. Like, input.”

“I will, thanks,” Harry parrots, his face breaking into a wide smile. 

“Idi—” Niall stops himself. They’re meant to keep things professional. “Okay, uh, bye,” he hangs up, Harry’s open mouth the last thing he sees before the screen goes black. 

He gulps down his smoothie, hoping to drown the butterflies in his stomach. In the middle of Jason taking the trophy on Sunday and Rory pulling spectacularly ahead of the field to win the Irish Open the following weekend, Niall thinks it would serve him right if Harry never got in touch again. 

But Harry does. Of course. Because it’s his job. Maybe. 

Walt doesn’t share Niall’s understanding of how the dream jar project is meant to be run, but it’s as easy as going to the next room and closing the door on his disapproving face.

“Sorry, lads. Show it to me again?” 

Liam moves around the glass jar one more time, going more slowly when he directs the camera over the top, where Harry has the wooden lid lifted just enough so Niall could see how the top of the hot air balloon is fixed to its underside. Harry lowers the lid back to rest, sealing the jar, and the balloon looks like it’s floating in the air inside. 

“Wow. I know it’s not getting out any time soon, but it really looks like it’s flying.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, his fingers moving around the rim of the jar as if he’s checking to make sure the fit is snug. “We were worried about it looking really fake, but I think it looks more like the balloon is about to float away and take the lid with it.”

“Really clever,” Niall says. “Beautiful.”

“It’s just a lid,” he hears Liam say, pleased but maybe a little embarrassed.

“Well, you go ahead and be modest, Payno, but—” the camera shakes away and Niall sees Liam again but with Louis right up against him. “—it’s not just a lid,” he says. “You see this lovely knot in the finial? It took me a week to source that particular piece of wood.” He knocks on the lid and, over Liam telling him not to do that, adds, “This is Irish pine, I’ll have you know. Well, Irish Scots pine.”

Niall grins at Louis, warmed by the thought that he cared enough to go looking. “Thank you. I dunno what to say. It’s brilliant.” 

“It’s not a problem, mate. Not a problem at all. But don’t thank us yet. Harry’s still working on the field and trees. And the people,” Louis says. “You know what, let me get him back so he can run you through that.”

The wait is long enough that Niall has time to check if Walt left (no) and if his sweaty face could use another towelling (yes). 

“Hey,” Harry says, coming into view. “So, um, I don’t have anything to show you so I’ll switch the video off, if you don’t mind.” 

“Not at all,” Niall says, tossing the towel back into the bathroom.

Harry’s face disappears but his voice gets very clear and it’s almost as if he’s right in the room. “You probably noticed the gondola is still empty except for the ballast. We’ll do another coat on the wicker and I’ve got little flags to go round it too. The pieces for the field and trees are next and the people I’ll do last.” 

“Okay,” Niall says when Harry doesn’t continue.

“Right, so, um, do you have a specific hairstyle in mind for the um, Dream Niall, shall we call him?”

Niall knows he’s had a fair number of hairstyles. There’s even a meme on Twitter about his hair magically doing things to tournament weather every weekend depending on the style. Probably because his fans get how much he loves Harry Potter. But the only thing that comes to mind is, “What do you reckon he should look like?”

“Like you,” Harry says. There’s a silence that makes the back of Niall’s neck tingle, like when the shower is really, really hot, until Harry adds, “I mean, obviously he should look the way you want him to look because it’s meant to be _your_ dream, not mi—Um, not anyone else’s dream. But he should look like you in the sense that there should be a recognisable likeness, because then I’d be doing my job.” 

“I dunno,” Niall says, grinning at the thought of being in one of Harry’s dreams even though he knows that was just Harry getting himself all mixed up. “I don’t think anyone would notice if it doesn’t look like me.”

“I would.”

“Because that’s your job,” Niall says quickly before Harry feels the need to qualify it for himself.

“Sort of,” Harry says, and it sounds like he’s smiling. 

Niall looks through the window at the leafy winding roads around the club, thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have such a clear image in his head of Harry’s dimples. 

“And um, what about the girl going on this dream date? What d’you want her to look like?”

Niall feels his good mood deflate and latches onto the easiest part of the question to respond to. “I don’t know if it’s a date. I mean, I guess it is, but it’s also like a trip, isn’t it? When you go away with someone, experience different things together. See things from the same, uh, basket.” Niall closes his eyes, mortified. “The same perspective, maybe.”

“That sounds nice,” Harry says after a small cough like he’s got a tiny fur ball in his throat. “Is there a specific look you want me to go for?”

Niall has an idea, but he swallows the burn of not being able to share it and says, “Someone who looks like they’re having a good time so I don’t look pathetic.” 

“That might be hard to do.”

“Thanks, Styles.” 

“I’m joking.”

“I know. I dunno,” Niall sighs. “A nice person. With a kind face. Can you do a kind face on a tiny model like that?” 

“I can try,” Harry replies slowly. 

“That’s good enough for me.”

“I did get a note saying she should have a handbag,” Niall hears him say after a moment.

Niall shakes his head. “All right. That’s nothing to do with me, but the only girl I ever dated did have a handbag that went everywhere with her. I suppose all girls carry one.”

“You suppose,” Harry says, laughing quietly, probably at him. “But golfers do too, don’t they? I mean, what’s a golf shoe bag if not a bag that you carry with your hand?”

“True,” Niall says, putting his foot up on the low window ledge so he can loosen his knee. “Though I’ve always thought there should be a shoulder strap for that. You know, I should ask Nike to make shoulder bags for the golf line. Because tell me, who has a spare hand when they’re rushing to the course loaded up with stuff?”

“Well,” Harry drawls. “Who would’ve thought it? You still thinking of the common man even though you’ve got a full-time caddy.” 

“He doesn’t live with me, though, does he?” 

“I hope not. His family might mind, mightn’t they?”

“He’s single with no kids, actually,” Niall says even though he knows Harry’s question was only mindless banter. “Some people share. On the road,” he adds after a moment. “But I prefer things a bit more separated than that.”

“Yeah,” Harry eventually says. “I mean, it’s easy to get muddled up sometimes. It’s better to keep things, like, in their own boxes, if you can.”

Niall doesn’t know what they’re talking about anymore, and it feels like they’re sliding off the edges of proper conversation. The stillness makes him want to just sit there, the phone up against his ear, and stay quiet, not disturb it for a while. He wonders if Harry feels the same. But he doesn’t get long to consider asking because Walt is knocking on the door, reminding him he’s got a couple of short videos to record for CRUK.

He gets off the phone without argument, but before he leaves for his shower, he glances back at Walt to say, “A handbag? Come on.”

Walt exhales. “It’s a girl. Girls wear handbags.”

“There was no need for it,” Niall says, paused at the door. “Harry gave me options because that’s what he’s meant to do. He did his job and I’m doing mine. I’m not going to go behind all your backs and ask them to put two blokes in that dream jar in some … I dunno, some convoluted scheme to come out to millions of people, at a charity event that’s not even mine, knowing I’ll spend the rest of the season with the press on my back asking me questions that have nothing to do with golf. You of all people should know that’s not who I am.” 

“Is that what you want? To come out?” 

Niall shakes his head. “You’re not listening to me,” he says. “I know my job, Walt. I know what I’m doing with my life.”

“He hasn’t been vetted.”

“He doesn’t need to be.”

“Don’t get too attached before he knows the score, Niall.”

Niall chuckles and walks away. “'Bit late, I think.”

+

“Let’s talk about the US Open last week,” the journalist says to him when he gets to Maryland in June. It’s another major he didn’t even get a look in at this year, but he knows what went wrong. The way they had the course set up, there was a lot of run. He couldn’t adapt his approach shots quickly enough. But he thinks he learned a few things and he’ll keep working on his game. He is saying all this when Rory passes by with his people and nods pointedly.

Niall nods back and comes by Rory’s rental in the early evening, the lemony smell of the flowers in the garden uncomfortably close in the humid air.

“I heard your name’s down for Rio,” Rory says once they’re alone on the patio with glasses of iced water in front of them.

“Yeah.” Niall remembers talking about it with him a year ago, imagining walking with the Irish contingent at the Olympic ceremony and how amazing that would be. There’s all this talk about Zika and the facilities now, but it hasn’t changed how he feels. “Still can’t believe it, to be honest with you. The Olympics.”

“I never thought they’d actually bring golf back,” Rory muses. Niall waggles his eyebrows in response. It’s gonna be amazing. He knows it. “Never thought I could be an Olympian.”

“I know. Me too. Walt wants to book a rental near the course, but I’m trying to stay in the Olympic Village. That’s gonna be half the experience, I reckon.”

“With the contingent.”

“Yeah. Of course. It’s gonna be amazing.” Because they’ll all be there for Ireland, Niall stops himself from saying. He doesn’t actually know if Rory is planning on showing up with them or with the Brits. 

Rory watches him for a moment before he says, “Well, I don’t think it’s worth it this year.” 

“But it’s the Olympics. It only comes round once every four years.”

He must be making a funny face because Rory suddenly laughs. “Niall, come on. Are you telling me you’re not going to still be on the Tour in four years?”

When Rory says things like that, Niall is careful not to look too pleased, to show just how much Rory’s regard will always mean to him. “Anything can happen,” Niall tells him, shrugging. “The knees could finally go by then. 2020 could be a bad year. Anything.”

Rory shrugs back, the corners of his sharp eyes still crinkled up. “Well, you go if you want to, but I’m not going anywhere near that Zika.” 

“Oh, come on. I don’t think it’s as bad as they’re making it out to be.” Niall lifts his glass to drink and feels the icy condensation dripping down his palm and wrist. “It’s just a … what d’you call that, a talking point.” Niall puts the glass down and wipes his arm. “The media making a big deal out of it.”

“I’m not chancing it,” Rory says, shaking his head. “Erica wouldn’t be happy with that. We’re already talking kids.”

“Are ya?” 

It feels like it was only yesterday when Rory showed up at Gleneagles and at the start of the practice round turned to Niall and said, “I think I might’ve found the girl of my dreams.” 

Anything more than friendship with Rory had been a fantasy, but Niall still felt it in the pit of his stomach. He remembers consoling himself with the fact that everything else in his life was already amazing, point one being that he was on a Ryder Cup team with players he’d idolised growing up. And Erica loves the game as much as Rory does. Knows the PGA inside out, what with it being part of her job. They’re made for each other. If Niall were in Rory’s shoes, he might feel the same.

“Fair enough,” Niall says, glancing at the creamy white flowers lit up by the patio lights. “Everyone’s got their own priorities, don’t they? But I honestly think you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“That’s because you have the luxury of not needing to think about kids,” Rory says, checking his beeping phone.

Niall feels his face tighten and tries to breathe it out but is too late somehow. “Not needing to? I want kids too, you know.” Rory’s head whips up and Niall gentles his tone. “When it’s time.” 

“I’m not saying you don’t,” Rory starts, smiling awkwardly, like in pressers, when he’s being asked on the record about someone else’s Saturday meltdown and he’s trying hard to make sure the clubhouse talk stored in his head is going to stay there. Suddenly, Niall’s not sure he wants to hear what Rory’s going to say next. “But when it’s time, you said. After you’re done with all of this, I’m assuming. So, no need to be thinking about all of that right now, is there?” 

“After I’m done with all of this,” Niall echoes, and Rory looks away, which tells Niall he did hear Rory right. “After I’m done with golf, you mean?”

“You’re young, is all I meant,” Rory says, still with his eyes trained over Niall’s shoulder.

“So are you.” Niall laughs and grabs his glass for another drink, busying himself with something to stop his mouth running. “Why do you get to think about kids and I don’t?” he asks anyway.

Clear as day, he’s startled Rory, who replies in a half grimace, “That’s not what I said.” 

Niall doesn’t know what he’s doing, but it feels important to keep going. “Why would I wait until I’m done with golf? You yourself, you’re not waiting, are ya?”

“I’m four years older than you.”

“Yeah, and two years ago you were almost getting married,” Niall says, putting the glass down.

“All right,” Rory lifts up his hands in mock surrender. “Jesus, Horan. I didn’t know you were so keen on getting married and having kids.”

“I’m not,” Niall admits, wiping his wet forearm on his shorts. “But the point is, I can, Ror. I can get married and have kids any time I want to. Just like you.”

“Not saying you can’t,” Rory says. He sighs, scratching his neck. “Look, I don’t know how we got on to this. I asked you over because I wanted to talk to you about the Olympics.”

Niall picks up his phone from the table. “I think we’ve covered that, haven’t we?”

“We have.”

“Maybe I’ll see you Wednesday, at the pro-am,” he says, getting up.

Rory, head tipped back, stares at him like he’s a tossed-up blade of grass going every which bloody way. “Are you all right, Niall?”

“What you mean?” Niall asks back, knowing his own feet are steady on the ground. There’s a rough sort of relief settling in him. That’s one less person to tell now, one less friendship to wonder about. 

“You seem like you’re wound a bit tight.”

Niall chuckles. “I wouldn’t put it that way. We’re not seeing eye to eye on some things, that’s all.” He sighs when Rory says nothing. “They’re not things I can do anything about, mate. So I’m gonna go and maybe I’ll see you soon.”

He offers his hand for Rory to shake in the silence, and leaves through the half-lit garden. He has his evening run ahead of him, a light dinner, and bed. His prep for tournaments has always been flawless. He prides himself on it.

But in the morning, still full of sleep, his mind wanders back to their conversation, to how Rory doesn’t want the rest of the Tour to know what he’s guessed for himself. 

The chill that gets him out of bed doesn’t go away until he’s two-thirds through his cardio, plastered in hot sweaty clothes, and thinking of the bloke with the terrible hair who has nothing to do with work and everything to do with a life he’d like to more than dream about. He keeps the thought close all the way through to Sunday, when he finishes tied for third and Rory is nowhere to be seen. 

When Greenbrier floods two weeks later, there’s nothing else more obvious to him. 

Harry has been sending him shots of the hot air balloon’s smiling passengers as they came to life. Niall wants to see them now in his little jar, in their little balloon, going on their big journey.

He gets out of his spot on the shared flight arranged to take some of the guys back to Palm Beach and books one for London.

+

“I’m at your house and you’re not here,” Walt crackles over the line.

“I’m in London,” Niall says, having spent two days getting over the jet lag and getting some good practice in at Wentworth.

“I’m aware of that. What are you doing there, Niall?”

He shrugs even though he knows Walt can’t see him. “They’re putting the dream jars up this week, aren’t they? For the BFG thing. I’m going to see mine.”

The line crackles on without Walt for a moment before Niall hears him say, “All right. When do you want me to schedule a private visit?”

Niall chuckles. “No. I wanna see how they’re gonna set it up.” He pads over to get the steam shower running. “I’m off to the Shard tonight,” he says loudly. 

“Niall.”

“They cancelled Greenbrier, Walt. It means I get a holiday, and we need to put some money into the PGA pot for the flood relief.”

“It doesn’t mean that. The Open starts next week.”

“I love you, Walt, and it does mean that,” Niall says, hanging up. 

Three hours later, he spends five minutes trying to get out of London Bridge station and another five walking to the entrance where Harry is waiting for him.

It’s been three months of seeing Harry on screen and never realising that his hair’s got shorter, of thinking that he dresses like his life is an endless East London photoshoot and not remembering that he moves like he grew a pair of legs only a couple of days ago. 

Niall would give him a hug, but Harry is working and Niall’s probably made him late.

“Hey,” Harry says, smiling that crooked smile of his.

“'Evening,” Niall replies, crossing his arms and flexing a bit to get some warmth back in them. The temperature feels like it dropped while he was down in the Tube and they’re very close to the river. “Thanks for waiting for me.”

“No problem.” Harry shrugs a shoulder in the direction of the doors. “Shall we?”

Niall nods and they bang into each other on the way in, but he doesn’t think either of them is worse for the wear.

Harry checks his phone when they’re in the lift and tells Niall the delivery crate is already on the sixty-eighth floor, where they’re setting up the display. 

“Okay,” Niall says, glancing quickly at Harry and back down at his boots again. 

When Niall asked if he could see the jar tonight, he somehow forgot really hating heights. He stared at the panel with all the buttons on it at first, but the amount of numbers made him feel a bit sick. He decided to concentrate on Harry’s boots instead, at the old stains on the light brown leather and the stories that could go with them. But it’s probably making him terrible company so he asks, “Louis and Liam up there?”

“No, it’s just us, I’m afraid. And Sexy Phil. He’s taking the crate back to the studio.”

Niall looks up. “Sexy Phil?” 

“You’ll see,” Harry says, grinning.

Sexy Phil is a six-foot-something wonder of muscle and soft, intelligent eyes. If Niall stands in the right spot in relation to him and the glass walls, he doesn’t even have to look at how far the fall would be down the side of the building. 

“Ready, Harry?” Phil asks after the introductions are made.

“Yeah. Let’s do it,” Harry says, taking off his jacket and dropping it to the side. He has a threadbare t-shirt on and there’s a series of holes close to the centre, across his lower back. 

Niall circles round to pick up bits of packing material from the floor, thinking he’ll go pile them back onto the delivery trolley, deflate all the bubble wrapping, occupy himself.

“You’d better not, Niall,” Phil says, smiling at him. “You’re not covered by our insurance.” He moves to take the little soft inflated plastic sacks out of Niall’s hand and Niall sees the jar, placed in the corner by the north-facing view across the Thames, sitting on a white square pedestal with a large label on it. There are more plastic sacks inside the jar, making it look more like it’s filled with giant Fox’s glacier mints than with a dream.

He watches silently as Phil and Harry gingerly lift the lid and move it away in quick, sure steps. Phil keeps to the side, the wicker basket of the hot air balloon cradled in one hand and the lid in the other, as he waits for Harry to clear the jar. 

Niall finds it a massive trial to stand there, watching Harry work, and not be able to do anything. 

“Alright,” Harry says, getting up, but only to whip out a worn chamois and start giving the glass a wipe, first bent over on a slight tiptoe to reach the insides, and then darting left and darting right to do the outside. There’s a lot of jean-clad arse in view for a good three minutes and Niall breathes out a sigh of relief when Harry goes round the other side of the jar. 

“It’s boring. I told you it would be.” 

“No,” Niall says, stepping closer. “Just can’t wait to get a good look at it.”

“Well, not yet!”

Niall laughs. “Alright. I’m not looking at it. Gonna read what it says here.”

He makes a show of bending down in front of the pedestal, finding his quote on the label in soft italics and a blurb below it,

> Masters and US Open champion Niall Horan is a born romantic. His Dream Jar sees the golfer fulfilling a lifelong dream of a date with a girl in a hot air balloon. 

“Jesus.” Walt must have signed off on the label. Put down a gender just in case. “They’re playing fast and loose with the truth, aren’t they? It really should say, _former_ Masters and US Open champion.”

Harry laughs under his breath, his face strangely childlike through the spotless glass. “I don’t think anyone will mind,” he says, and motions for Phil to come back. “The people who’ll go looking for this jar are the ones who’ll always think you’re a champion.” 

“That’s deep, Styles,” Niall says, and tries to ignore the feeling that there’s less air in the room. It doesn’t matter that the label is false. He’s on holiday in the city that he loves and he knows now Harry can laugh like there are little carolling bells tinkling in his chest. 

Phil helps Harry lower the lid so that the attached hot air balloon looks like it’s moving away from the front of the jar and goes off to start clearing up, packing the delivery trolley with some speed. It’s gone past half eleven and this is probably the last job he has before going home. 

Niall doesn’t want to disturb anyone, but Harry is still leaning over the jar to secure it, the curled hem of his ratty t-shirt riding up his back, and there is nothing else to focus on but London a thousand feet below. 

He hates heights. It’s a bit ironic how they’ve got him in a hot air balloon going on his perfect date. He’d go into a spin, maybe vomit, and that would be the end of it. No true love, no shagging happily ever after.

“Why did you stop playing golf?” Niall asks, staring at the knob – no, what was the fancy name? The finial – on the lid of the jar and the layers of knotting in the wood.

Harry gives him a quick glance. “I told you, I moved down here for uni.”

“What, forgot to take your clubs with, did ya?”

“Ha ha,” Harry says, giving the lid a final, dramatic wipe with the chamois before stepping back.

The scene in the jar is truly out of a fairy tale. Harry made the field and trees much smaller in comparison to the balloon so that it looks like it’s already flying high, taking the people in it on some magical adventure.

“It’s beautiful,” Niall says. 

“Bend back down,” Harry tells him. “See it like a kid would see it.”

At a child’s height, all he can see in the background is the skyline outside. It’s as if the hot air balloon is about to float over the city. 

“It’s really beautiful, Harry.”

“Good work, Harry. As always,” he hears Phil say. When he looks up, Harry is smiling quietly, his eyes bright. 

“Job’s done,” Niall says when the lift dings shut on Phil and they’re left alone with the jar and London below, glimmering in the dark.

“Yeah. My work area at the studio is a complete and utter disaster, but it’s all done,” Harry says. He stares at Niall for a second before he takes off his glasses and starts to clean them with the hem of his t-shirt. 

There’s a barely visible design on the front and a maddening glimpse of Harry’s stomach lower down, but Niall can still make out that it’s a Stones t-shirt. He wonders if Harry might also like the same music as he does or if it’s just something Harry picked up at a vintage shop. Niall really shouldn’t hope.

“What do you honestly think?” Harry asks, tilting his head at the jar. “Now that you don’t have to be polite in front of strangers.” 

“Sexy Phil isn’t a stranger. Not anymore,” Niall says. He steps up to the jar one last time, wishes the journeying couple the very best of luck, and turns to Harry, a little embarrassed by the warmth he feels deep inside. “I think, if you don’t mind, I want to take you out to dinner.”

Harry blinks before he puts his glasses back on, letting out a small laugh. “Alright.”

“Alright,” Niall says back. 

A giddy sort of panic starts to set in as they wait for a lift. He just asked a bloke out for the very first time in his life, here, too far up above the world.

They’ll find something, even if it’ll be at a chicken shop and Niall will have to forego his golf season diet. But maybe Harry is also on some kind of diet and it isn’t so easily set aside. Maybe they’ll only find food at a private club or a hotel, and he’s not sure Harry would be up for that. Maybe they’d end up eating at Niall’s, or worse, at Harry’s, and Niall didn’t bring his toothbrush with. 

He knows he has ingredients for an omelette back at his place. Maybe that would do. Or maybe that would be much too soon. “It’s almost midnight,” he starts when they’re inside the lift. “There’s not gonna be many places that’ll seat us. Not if we want more than just snacks with drinks.” 

“I don’t know about you, but I’m up for some proper food,” Harry says. “Only had granola bars all day.” When Niall tells him he’d like something more substantial too, he asks, “Do you like Chinese?”

Niall grins. “Yeah.” He has a soft spot for it, the easiest takeaway he could get back in Mullingar when he moved in with his dad and before golf came calling. “I love Chinese,” he says.

“I know a place in Chinatown if we can get there before half twelve. It’s probably not what you’re used to, but the food’s really good.”

Niall can’t remember ever eating in Chinatown, but he’ll trust Harry on this one. “Sounds good,” he says, and Harry’s smile widens.

It’s weird, gazing into Harry’s eyes and not already thinking that what’s happening could never work out. 

Harry coughs and says, “Stupid question, probably, but d’you have an Oyster card? It’s like a card for the bus or Tube? If you don’t—”

“What do you take me for?” Niall says, getting out of the lift. “'Course I do.”

They head back toward the main road, Niall keeping an eye on where they’re walking and Harry looking up the best way to get to the restaurant. 

When they get to the bus stop, a girl in sports clothes the only other person there, Harry turns to him and passes him a beanie without explaining why. There’s a chill in the air, but it’s also early July and this year, London might actually be having a summer. “Here,” is all Harry says when Niall doesn’t take it right away. 

The beanie is soft, a thin black woven thing that smells a bit like leather and Harry. Niall puts it on without being able to see himself, but it’s hard to go wrong with what’s essentially a sock for his head. 

The ride is mostly quiet at first. It’s bright in the bus and Niall doesn’t know how much talking would be normal. He can see Harry better too, the unwashed hair and the curl near his temple, the jawline that can cut glass and the way it sets off his wicked lips. If Niall is too silent, it’s because most of his brain power is being taken up by the effort to not stare at him. 

When they get to Waterloo and the bus circles the IMAX roundabout to get on the bridge, the theatres and the lights across the water opening up to them, Harry asks him if he spends much time in London. Niall tells him he doesn’t, but if global warming keeps up and they get more sunny days, he might be able to. It gets him a laugh out of Harry, who spends the rest of the journey asking him what it’s like to have a home in Florida and work in sunny places all the time.

“It’s not always sunny, though,” Niall says when they’re off the bus and going single file because there are still streams of people on Charing Cross Road. “In fact, when I go to Scotland next week, it’s probably going to be pouring and hailing. The Open is notorious for that.”

Chinatown is a mix of emptying restaurants and closed shops, the smell of sugary buns and roast duck mixing with damp litter. Harry is telling him about an amazing bakery round the corner when someone walks right into their path. Instinctively, Niall moves to swerve and picks up his pace.

“Wait. Aren’t you Niall Horan?”

He stops. Gives Harry an apologetic look and turns.

“I am,” he says, seeing a girl standing alone, her face lighting up. 

“I thought so! Man, I can’t believe this. Can I get a photo? My sister would kill me if I don’t. We’re both big, big fans.”

He walks over to her, already feeling stiff even though he prides himself on being approachable to fans. “Yeah. Sure. You gonna do a selfie?”

“Yeah,” she says, already whipping out her phone. 

He asks her for it and takes a burst of shots, clicking it off when he hands it back to her. 

“Thank you so much,” she laughs.

“Thanks for the support,” he tells her, slapping her shoulder, and gets to walking away.

He doesn’t see Harry at first, but he finds him further on down the street, standing outside a closed grocery in the haze of light washing through the glass, seemingly mesmerised by the rows of brightly coloured things on display. 

He wonders for a second if he could get Harry to look at him like that before asking himself if it’s normal to want to be like a pack of miniature mango jelly cakes. 

“Hey,” he says softly, stepping up to stand next to him.

Harry looks over and gives him a small smile. “I didn’t want to interrupt,” he explains.

“Sorry about that,” Niall apologises. “Hope we’re not gonna be too late.”

“We’ll be fine.” 

They get on their way again, Niall half-heartedly because he’s not sure Harry’s correct. 

But the restaurant is open and someone is seating the couple who just walked in ahead of them. It’s plain, with fewer than a dozen small tables. The food must be good, going by the pleased smiles he can see even from the street. 

He doesn’t want to think about why, but he’s reaching out with his hand to stop Harry from going in. “Do they do takeaway?”

“I think so,” Harry says slowly. 

“Maybe that’s better,” Niall says, and remembers to take his hand away. “Just in case.” He takes a breath and adds, “We could eat at mine, if you want to.”

If Harry’s surprised, he’s not showing it. “Whereabouts do you live?” he asks. “Cos I’ve got work in the morning.”

“I’ll drive you in,” Niall says quickly. Too quickly, he thinks, realising too late how it must have sounded. “Christ,” he blushes. “What I mean is, I know it’s late—” Harry is starting to grin, and Niall feels very, very foolish, but there’s absolutely no going back now “—so if you come over for dinner and stay the night, I’ll make sure you get to work on time.” And before Harry can reply, Niall adds, “I also have a spare room. And I’m near the Grove. Which is only a silly little golf club, so I dunno why I’m telling you I live near it because that really doesn’t help. I’m in—” 

“Niall,” Harry stops him, one hand grabbing his shoulder, giving it a fleeting squeeze that goes straight to Niall’s knees. His grin goes a bit shy when he says, “Yes. Let’s get takeaway. We can eat at yours.”

“Okay,” Niall says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as wobbly as his knees feel. “You go and order.” He pulls out his wallet and thrusts fifty quid into Harry’s hand. “Get whatever you want and if you could get a chicken dish for me, that would be brilliant. I like chicken.” He pulls out his phone next. “I’m gonna wait out here and call us a car,” he explains. “It’ll be faster.”

Harry says nothing about the money or the chicken, but he does make time for some cheek and asks, “Is that a fancy way of telling me you’re getting us an Uber?”

Going up to his place takes a half hour, which Niall spends silently listening to Harry charming the driver with stories about working on the new mayor’s dream jar. Harry is shouting a little because the windows are down and halfway through, he moves to the middle seat, shifting all the food over, so he can lean forward a bit, his knee knocking into Niall’s every time he does. 

Niall wants to grab Harry’s busy hands, tell him the driver probably can’t see what he’s doing with them anyway. There’s so much life in him when he’s talking about his work, Niall thinks, feeling lightheaded even in the breeze. The beanie probably isn’t helping, but he’ll wait until he gets home to take it off, fix his hair where there’s a mirror. 

He can’t remember the last time he brought someone home. Maybe before he dropped out of UDub to go pro. On the rare occasion during Tour, it’s usually about finding a place with complete and utter privacy. Tonight feels different. He still doesn’t care if Harry likes the house, but he really hopes the cleaner has been in.

She hasn’t because the shirt he signed for her son is still on the hallway table, but the place is neater than he remembers leaving it even if the living room is littered with old gear he pulled out of storage.

“Take a right at the end of the hall,” he tells Harry, who nods and keeps going. 

Niall shuts the front door and waits for the sensor lights by the gate to wink out before following him to the kitchen with the rest of the food.

“Didn’t realise you had a whole house here too,” Harry says when they’re sat next to each other at the kitchen island, sharing a crispy pepper chicken, steamed greens, sweet and sour chicken, dumplings, spring rolls, and chicken fried rice. 

“Easier to be based here when I’m in this part of the world. Would be nice to be closer to family, but that’s how it is.”

“Is Ireland still home, then?”

“Yes.” Niall chuckles at how quickly it came out of him. “I would say so. I mean, I only ever make it back there for Christmas and when I’m playing there, but it’s always gonna be home for me.”

Harry smiles and tucks back into the rice. “Must be hard. Living away so much.”

“I dunno. It’s the job, isn’t it?” Niall says, reaching for a spring roll. “My mother was travelling with me for a while, but she’s got her own life. My father’s back in Mullingar. He doesn’t like to travel much. Likes his quiet life. But we keep up with each other.” He shrugs. “They come out to see me play when they can.”

“When I started at RCA, Mum came down to see me almost every weekend until I had to like, remind her that she never did that when my sister went off to uni,” Harry says. “Now, if I don’t go up to see her, I never do. My sister just had a kid and she’s busy being Grandma.” His voice is quiet and bright when he adds, “Can’t blame her. He’s a sweet little baby. I’m hoping to go up this weekend, actually.” 

“My brother has a kid. He’s three this month,” Niall tells him, dipping the crunchy end of the roll into some coconut aminos. It’s not soy sauce no matter what his nutritionist tells him, but he’s already committing a thousand sins eating Chinese tonight. “I got to hold him just after he was born. He was a tiny little thing.” Niall chews up the last half the roll and washes it down with a swig of terrible light beer. “And now he walks everywhere on his own. Disappears in a flash if you don’t watch out.” 

Harry is watching him, mouth parted, and Niall wonders if the meal is done now, and he’ll get to put his hand on Harry’s thigh and maybe kiss him for a good while, see if anything comes of it. 

“What?” Niall asks softly, and takes another swig.

“I really don’t like the taste of beer, but I really want to kiss you,” Harry tells him. “I’m really conflicted at the moment.” 

Niall starts to giggle. “You are as shit at this as I am.”

“Was that really offensive?”

“No, but. Maybe.” Niall gets up. “I’ve got some fruit in the fridge. Peaches. Oranges. Maybe pears.” 

“We’d make a peachy pear.”

Niall giggles again. “What?” he takes his head out of the fridge.

“Nothing. Um. It’s a pun. A peach pear. A peachy pair, set, two of a kind.”

Niall tosses Harry three peaches in one go. Because he is an idiot and Niall might be a little bit in love. Because he too is an idiot.

Harry catches them all in a slick juggle and they’re both laughing red until one goes its own way and splashes into the sweet and sour chicken, sending the takeaway bowl up into the air.

“I guess you’re not going home tonight,” Niall says when they’re in his snug utility room, Harry still towelling off his hair in his boxers, socks, and one of Niall’s old t-shirts.

“Why d’you say that?” Harry asks, leaning against the dryer, smiling crookedly.

“It’s gonna take the whole night drying your t-shirt on that setting.”

“It’s vintage, Niall. It’s very delicate. Hence, Delicates.”

“Right.”

Niall flips the lever to unplug the basin, hearing the water swirl down the drain as he steps up to where Harry is standing.

“I ate one of the peaches when you were scrubbing away your sins,” he says. “So. Can I kiss you now?” 

“Yeah,” Harry says, eyes bright. “Please.”

Niall leans in and puts his mouth over Harry’s, feels the warmth of him with nothing between them now, thinks how lucky he is to be able to do this.

Harry’s mouth is heavy and hungry against Niall’s, and when his breath hitches, the sound seems louder than anything else in the room. But his hands are quiet, until Niall moves his own over Harry’s hips, his arse, and Harry presses forward, scrabbling Niall’s sides, the waist of his jeans, the backs of his thighs, asking. 

They stumble and twist and make it to a bed in a room down the hall. Just. Niall grabs Harry’s elbows to stop him for second, make sure his glasses are safe on the nightstand, before stripping them both, fast, Harry making small noises about the callouses on his hands and Niall never knowing until now what it’s like to need to laugh, and fuck, and breathe all at the same time.

+

It’s six when Niall’s alarm goes off. He gets out of bed and into his running gear mechanically before he remembers he was in bed with Harry and could’ve basked in it for a second. But it’s too late to get back in and Harry is dead asleep, one foot peeking through the bottom end of the quilt. Niall pads back to the bed and tucks it under before going for his first morning run.

Harry doesn’t stumble into the kitchen until half past seven, when the blueberry and oat muffins are starting to firm up in the oven. 

“What’s going on?” he asks, bleary-eyed but with his own clothes back on. 

“Breakfast,” Niall replies.

“Cool.”

Niall tells him there’s coffee in the cabinets if he wants some and goes back to slicing up more fruit even though no one is going to be able to eat it all.

“Need an extra pair of hands?” Harry asks when the Nespresso is going.

“Nah.”

“I used to be a baker,” Harry says, sidling up for a slice of nectarine and chewing wetly, his lips sundown dark against the disappearing sliver of golden yellow flesh. “I was like, an apprentice at a bakery.”

“Were ya?” Niall puts down the knife, not wanting to cut himself with so many distractions up close. “Maybe I should’ve got you up earlier.” 

“I wasn’t very good at muffins. Or with bread. Or cakes,” Harry tells him, taking another slice before going back to the coffee. “Didn’t do so well with buns either. They always cracked.” 

Niall laughs. “What else is there to do at a bakery?”

“Loads. I did all the decorating, and the paste work. Like with marzipan and stuff.” Harry downs what must be scalding coffee and presses the button for more. “Bunnies for Easter and snowmen for Christmas, that sort of thing.” 

“'S that how you got started then?”

“Started with what?”

“What you do. The miniatures and the models.”

“Maybe? I was horrible at clay work. Only did it properly after I got into the college.” He rubs a hand through his hair and drinks his coffee, in sips this time. “Photography’s my thing, really. That’s how I got an internship at the studio. But then I met Louis and Liam and Zayn – who you might have met?” He holds a slice of nectarine up for Niall, who doesn’t know what to do except eat it, with Harry staring at him all the while. 

“Anyway,” Harry continues, seeming to pay no mind to Niall pinking in front of him, “they’re always short of hands in the modelling team. So I ended up helping out, started getting paid for a few hours here and there after the internship. Got lucky, I guess. They were hiring when I was graduating and, yeah,” he shrugs. “Been there ever since.” 

“Don’t think you’ve told me that before.”

“Don’t think you’ve made me breakfast before.”

Niall smiles, leaning away for the oven gloves. “Artist Harry Styles opens up over breakfast,” he says in his newscaster’s voice. 

“Shut up.”

“How he got his first break and where he’s headed next.” 

“To work to clean up his bench before management circulates another memo about standards.”

Niall pulls the muffins out the oven, hoping he hasn’t gotten carried away, making plans during his run earlier. Maybe he should let Harry go and bring it up later. Give it a day or so. 

But he’s shit at not being ambitious. “You’re going away for the weekend, you said.”

“Yeah. Up to my mum’s.”

“I’m leaving early for the Open,” Niall tells him, omitting the part about his team insisting he does. “But I’m coming back here before the PGA Championship. So, the week after next, if I make the cut at Royal Troon.”

“You will.”

Niall smiles and burns himself pushing muffins out of the silicone mould. “Anyway. Maybe we can do this again.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, and in his quiet voice Niall hears what he heard last night as they were falling asleep, Harry with his head tucked up under Niall’s chin, talking about the music they liked. He knows they’ll hit a limit, but right now, it feels like there’s so much he’ll get to have with him.

He tosses the empty mould into the sink and bumps Harry on the shoulder so he’ll turn around, be close enough for kissing. Harry’s lips are gentle and Niall remembers how good they felt all over. 

“The day I get back from the Open, we’re gonna do this again.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees in between kisses, and it feels to Niall like something important has come true.

+


End file.
